Got Anxiety? If not, why not? (with lessons from Inside Out 2)
One great takeaway from Inside Out 2, Pixar’s summer blockbuster, is that we are all entitled to a full range of emotions—from the ones that feel great to the ones we’d rather avoid.
I know one of the starring emotions in the film, “Anxiety,” perhaps too well. Although I wish it didn’t visit so often, anxiety and its cousin, fear, have been granted a permanent place in my internal “family of emotions.”
Experiencing anxiety, however, can be rough when it leads to a full-bore meltdown about the future, especially at three in the morning.
Inside Out 2 viewers watch as Riley, the film’s engaging heroine, lies wracked with worry as she tries to sleep and then suffers a full-on panic attack the next day.
Fortunately, I’m not a teenager, and usually, I do a little better managing my mind.
Or I do until the next extremely-bad-news regarding the US elections comes through the air waves. Today’s headlines made me want to SCREAM.
Why aren’t we all screaming? (Calm down, Sally, everyone is entitled to react differently.)
Inside Out 2 tells teenagers (and adults who need reassurance) that it’s OK to have even our difficult emotions—as long as we don’t let any one emotion try to take over our internal control center.
Screaming can be cathartic, but screaming at a poor grocery checker or customer service rep—not a good idea.
Anxiety is growing in the USA
Apparently, anxiety in the US has been steadily climbing over the last few years.
According to this report on Psychiatry.org:
“The 2024 results of the American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll show that U.S. adults are feeling increasingly anxious. In 2024, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. Adults are particularly anxious about current events (70%) — especially the economy (77%), the 2024 U.S. election (73%), and gun violence (69%).
“Living in a world of constant news of global and local turmoil, some anxiety is natural and expected,” said APA President Petros Levounis, M.D., M.A. “But what stands out here is that Americans are reporting more anxious feelings than in past years. This increase may be due to the unprecedented exposure that we have to everything that happens in the world around us, or to an increased awareness and reporting of anxiety. Either way, if people have these feelings, they are not alone…”
But you probably already knew that.
Welcome to the party
Google “manage anxiety,” and references to clinical treatments designed to address anxiety as a pathology pop up.
I want to scream again.
Maybe anxiety is not a pathology but an appropriate response to recent attacks on democracy and concerns about the US Presidential elections.
Anxiety and fear can be useful wake-up calls alerting us to real dangers and warning us to do something.
Unless they take over our internal steerage wheel, fuzz out our brains, keep us from sleeping, or cause us to numb out.
If you’re feeling anxious
Let’s not judge ourselves for losing it periodically or melting into a puddle of fear, stress, and anxiety.
Getting up can be hard work, but as I’ve shared before, it can help to keep a toolbag of practices ready for emergencies. Breathe, meditate, sleep, sing, move, be in nature, notice recurring do-loops of thoughts, etc.
Most of all, don’t think you’re alone. You’re in good company.
If you’re anxious, it may show that you care. If you’re empathic, the pain of the world may get to you. Celebrate that you’re an alive, sentient, caring soul.
However, DON’T believe everything that fear and anxiety want to tell you. You still have to figure out what is true and decide how to act.
Balance fear with hope
I’m scared about the next five months and the elections. But I also choose hope—not because the situation isn’t grave, but because looking for what’s possible supports my sense of agency and capacity to keep going and do my small part.
In Inside Out 2, the emotion Joy (a delightful character voiced by comedian Amy Poehler) has a leading role. She wants life to be just about the good stuff until she is forced to learn that you can’t get rid of fear and anxiety by pushing them away and pretending they don’t exist.
Even as she begins to share leadership with others, they turn to her for the gift that she has to offer: a light.
Today, we need to be light bearers for each other.
We can’t eliminate fear—we just have to find the Light when a wave of darkness threatens to pull us under—then share it.
As Inside Out2 reminded us, we don’t have to do it alone.
Times are scary. Keep that emergency kit handy. Maybe it’s time to put on a favorite playlist and scream. On mine is a favorite song from the band Abraxas Pool, whose members played with Carlos Santana. The song is called “Don’t Give Up.”
Keep the faith!
